Thursday, February 28, 2013

Portsmouth Beer Week seems like a perfect time to share an update on the construction of our new brewery at Towle Farm in Hampton. Here it is!

Despite three weekends of snow storms, work continues at an impressive rate. I can't say I envy the work crews out there, but I certainly appreciate the work they've been doing under such cruddy conditions. The building is far enough along that our brewing and packaging staff recently went out to the site for the first time to see the progress and walk through their new work space. They were pretty amazed and excited.

One things they're excited about is our new brewhouse, which is being built right now. It's a four vessel, 100 hectoliter (~85 barrels) system from top German firm, Krones. This powerful piece of machinery is from the same Combi Cube line as the system Founders Brewing recently installed, though theirs is a bit smaller. The new technology will greatly increase our consistency and quality, which is vitally important when brewing and packaging beer. There's so much to say about the system, that it'll get its own post once it arrives on our shores.

Otherwise, here are a few updates and photos from our builder's representative and project manager, Clark James.

-The warehouse is almost fully enclosed, save for the overhead doors and interior partition separating it from the bottling area.

-The panel crew has been working to affix insulated panels to the exterior of the building. The building won't actually be yellow.

-The roofers are progressing with insulating the sloped roof, and have installed membrane ("TPO") on much of the flat roof.

-Masonry has been completed on several of the interior block walls, and the masons have begun installing the stone veneer on the exterior on the front of the building.

-We hope to start framing in the brew pub within two weeks.

That's not all:

We're working with the folks at Applecrest Farm, a local orchard, to revitalize the Towle Farm Orchard. Many people have asked if we'll make cider. While it might be fun, I believe we'd need a winery license and that isn't remotely on our radar right now. On the other hand, we will have a pub at Towle Farm, so I can certainly imagine many more culinary uses for the fruit, than fermentory ones.

Smuttynose is lucky to have two beekeepers on staff and we'll be able to use their skills on our new beerhives! The bees will arrive at their new home at Towle Farm in April. Clark, who is one of the beekeepers, says we've got Italians with Carnolian queens. If you're asking about mead, the same answer to the cider question applies here.

Construction began with the warehouse.

If you were in our pub, this would be your view of the brewery.

Snow can't stop the Harvey Construction crew!

The main entrance is in the lower left-hand corner of this shot. The offices are just above on the second floor.

Here's a cool night time shot, looking straight down the fermentation cellar.

The backside of the warehouse is closing up. Note the barn on the right.

If you'd like up to the minute views of the new brewery, check out our webcam at http://www.towlefarm.com.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

According to the Brookston Beer Bulletin, there are nearly 100 beer weeks in America, but ours runs from February 24-March 4. We've seen beer awareness in the Seacoast grow a great deal since we tapped our first keg of Shoals Pale Ale at the Stockpot in June, 1994. Back then, we had to try and explain why our beer was different than cold, yellow and fizzy. Now, we've got a region full of craft beer drinkers and we're very excited to celebrate the beer culture that's finally taking root here.Bill Harris has worked very hard to put together this slate of events. Thanks to him, we'll betapping some rare barrel-aged beers, showing some love to some of our favorite accounts and debuting Noonan, our new Black IPA. We're pretty excited and our brewers, bottlers and sales folk will be out during the week, drinking and making merrywith you all. We hope to see you at one of these awesome events.

Saturday 2/23: Seacoast Winter Beer Festival at
The Gas Light, Two sessions plus VIP,
please visit http://seacoastwinterbrewfest.com/ for more information. The 2BeerGuys and Seacoast Beverage
Lab have reunited with the Gas Light to host the Seacoast’s only winter beer
fest. This year’s edition has brewers
set up on heated space on their famous deck, as well as the third floor, where
last year’s fest was. The VIP session
begins at 11am while the first session starts at noon and runs to 3pm. The second session runs from 4pm-7pm. We'll be featuring 2011 Scotch Ale and 2011 S'Muttonator, somake sure you have a hearty lunch!

Sunday 2/24: Rolling Out The Barrels with Smuttynose, Sam Adams
and WHEB at RiRa from 3pm-5pm.

RiRa will be pouring, Big A IPA and
three year old, a barrel-aged variant of one of our most prized Big Beers,
Baltic Porter, while bearded Smuttynose staffers will be there to schmooze.

Chef Evan, Denise, Marion and RJ open
their doors and draft lines to debut our newest collaboration beer: Bloom! Bloom is a Belgian golden ale brewed with edible
flowers grown by the Trumpet’s staff at Meadow’s Mirth Farm. If that’s not cool enough, you can also try
recent Short Batches Durty and ParadoX as well as a 2010 Baltic Porter aged in
bourbon barrels. Each beer will also
have a food pairing curated by a Smuttynose staff member. Foodies won’t want to miss this chance to
take over one of Portsmouth’s most beautiful dining rooms.

This annual event includes passed
appetizers and four delicious courses, each paired with a Smuttynose beer and a J.
Lohr wine. At the end of the night, diners
will choose the winner, so please help us stack the deck! Our beers for the night are: Star Island
Single, Old Brown Dog, 2012 Homunculus, 2012 Scotch Ale and a cask of 2013
Baltic Porter aged on cocoa nibs. For
more information, please call the Mermaid at (603) 427-2583.

Thursday 2/28: Fun With Firkins at the Coat of
Arms, featuring Smuttynose, Throwback and Moat Mountain, from 6pm-8pm

We’ll be pouring Finestkind IPA
dry-hopped with experimental hop 01210.
Fellow Granite State brewers, Moat Mountain and Throwback will also be
on the beer engines for your drinking pleasure.

Beer Week returns to the scene of
the Seacoast Winter Beer Fest! 2012
Zinneke and 2013 Gravitation will be pouring as part of the Gas Light’s
collection of Belgian treats. Alpo,
their beer buyer, can really assemble a beer collection, so you won’t want to
miss this!

Friday 3/1: WXGR Gourmet Lounge, a live
broadcast cooking show, featuring Rudi’s and Smuttynose, Rudi’s in the Square, from
6pm-8pm

Rudi’s chef will demonstrate how to
cook two dishes, incorporating a Smuttynose beer into each.
The Gourmet Lounge is open to the first 70 people who show up. These lucky folks will be able to
enjoy Durty and bourbon barrel-aged 2010 Baltic Porter on tap.

We’re teaming up with the fine folks
at Sam Adams and the Press Room to open a crowd-sourced art event. The call has gone out to the Seacoast to
create locally-themed or -influenced art, which will be on display (and for
sale) at the Press Room for the entire month of March. A bourbon-oaked Finestkind cask will be on
the bar for your drinking enjoyment along with bourbon barrel-aged 2010 Baltic
Porter, bourbon barrel-aged 2010 Wheat Wine, and 2011 Farmhouse Ale. $1.00 from each pint goes to (H)EAT, a local
organization that helps local families bridge heating and food deficits. if you want to submit art work, please email the Press Room's Tristan Law at tristanklaw (at) gmail (dot) com.

Smuttynose Logo

Upcoming Beer Releases

These dates show when we expect to release these beers at our Smerch Store. Shipments to our distribution partners will coincide with their order cycles, so you'll see new releases a little bit after the dates you see below.

Pumpkin Ale - August

Smuttlabs: Brett & I - Shipping Now!

Big Beer Series: Tripel (brand new release!) August 16

Smuttlabs: Schmutzig - August 23

Now and Then Series: Cluster's Last Stand - (Stone Collaboration) August 30

Winter Ale - October 15

Smuttlabs: Oak-Aged Tripel - TBD

Smuttlabs: Strawberry Short Weisse - Fall 2014

Smuttlabs: White IPA - TBD

Big Beer Series: S'muttonator (double bock) - November

Full Time: Baltic Porter - 12oz Four Pack, Fall 2014

Full Time: Really Old Brown Dog - 12oz Four Pack, Fall 2014

Durty (we promise to brew more) - December 13

The Smuttynose Big Beer Series

Since 1998, Smuttynose Brewing has offered its Big Beer Series, specialty beers released seasonally in very limited quantities. Although some styles appear every year, others get dropped or added to the lineup, or simply take a sabbatical for a year or two. Adding to the free-form nature of this series, our brewers are encouraged to tweak, change and experiment with recipes from one year to the next, so that one year's edition may be subtly or dramatically different from the next (or it may be exactly the same).

Since 2002, our Executive Brewer, David Yarrington, has contributed notes on each new edition of the Series, as well as on other seasonal beers, such as our Pumpkin Ale. Sometimes the notes are extensive; sometimes, if little or no changes have been made to the previous year's edition, they will be brief.

By the way, all Smuttynose Big Beers are bottle conditioned and will age quite nicely if stored properly. Starting in 2005, we've "vintage" dated our Big Beer labels to help you keep your cellar organized.

Smuttlabs

“How many things are we upon the brink of discovering if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries?” -Mary Shelley

We’re very proud of each of our Smuttynose beers, but our brewing staff has many ideas that can’t be done on a large scale; this is where Smuttlabs comes into play. From barrel-aging and beer souring to culinary collaborations and special projects that just don’t fit anywhere else, if a project is out of the ordinary, unique or time consuming, you can bet it’ll bear the Smuttlabs name.

In 2007, we began these experimental brewings, with a beer called “The Gnome” (which became Homunculus in the Big Beer Series), under the Short Batch Series name. As we’ve increased production and volumes of these eccentric beers, we’ve rechristened them “Smuttlabs,” to reflect the creative experimentation found in each batch.

Smuttlabs releases seek to bridge the gap between “rare” and “hard to find.” Brewing on these terms, success can take different forms. Some releases may have semi-regular production and others may never see a mash tun again. There will constantly be Smuttlabs beers in all phases of production from conception, to brewing and fermentation to aging and packaging.

We’ll announce Smuttlabs beers here on our blog, through social media as well as our website. We know you’ll have just as much fun seeking them out and drinking them as we do brewing them.